Glass and metal artist Barbara Bond delivers this month’s LOCA Talk
Story and photos by MARRIE STONE
Walking into stained-glass artist Barbara Bond’s home feels a little like standing inside the frame of one her works. Mid-century modern furniture pops with playful colors – lime greens, bright oranges and crimson reds. Geometric objects and a whimsical backsplash punctuate her minimal décor. The color palette and design reflect the modern industrial motifs Bond is fond of creating in her pieces. Her home is an entrée into Bond’s imaginative yet orderly mind and a near-literal window into her glass work.
On Thursday, March 17, Bond will offer the public another window into her process as she delivers this month’s LOCA Art Talk at the LCAD Gallery downtown. As part of LOCA’s commitment to artistic education, these monthly lectures offer personal glimpses into each artist’s methods. For painters, sculptors, printmakers and artists working in other mediums, cross-pollination across genres often fuels new insights and provides different perspectives to approaching problems. For lay people who find the entire artistic endeavor mysterious, these talks offer opportunities to glimpse behind the scenes and witness what living like an artist looks like.
Bond previewed a bit of her process with me, along with a tour of her home studio and a peek at many of her pieces. It’s interesting to trace the evolution of an artist’s work across time. What struck me most – apart from her near 50-year passion for the form – is the unique way she marries disparate aspects of her life with her work. Every artist’s eye is unique, born of personal influences and imagination. For Bond, these influences wouldn’t be evident without a little digging. I was grateful she indulged my excavation.
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Barbara Bond turned to art full-time in 2010 after retiring from a near 40-year career at Orange Coast College
Working full-time for nearly 40 years at Orange Coast College – teaching kinesiology, health and physical education – Bond pursued her art mostly as an amusement. She began her stained-glass training in 1975 with an evening class offered at Laguna Beach High School. Although she found the instructor’s approach lacking, she loved the art. Armed with a beginner’s guidebook and the materials she needed, Bond set out to teach herself the techniques and skills required for the form. She made windows and doors for friends and produced some pieces for fun.
But when she retired in 2010, Bond decided to turn her pastime into a profession. “I had done stained glass as a hobby,” said Bond. “But I wanted to be juried. I wanted to test whether professional artists would like my work. That’s why I applied first to the Art-A-Fair in 2014 and then to the Festival of Arts in 2015. When I got in, I was just thrilled to know a jury appreciated my art.”
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Bond has had an enduring fascination with fences and recurring patterns. Those obsessions are reflected in her work.
Bond produces three basic styles: floor statues, tabletop sculptures and wall hangings. The freestanding work allows her to get creative with the base design and incorporate her talent for metal work. For her wall hangings, Bond developed an ingenious method to hang the pieces a few inches away from the wall, allowing natural sunlight to illuminate the work from behind and change the look of the piece as the light shifts. “When light passes through the house or the light above it changes, so does the reflection on the wall,” said Bond. “It’s almost like – maybe it’s an overstatement to say it’s a ‘living piece of art’ – but you get these interesting changes with the light and different experiences of the piece as it passes through.”
Forever a fan of Frank Lloyd Wright, many of Bond’s previous works reflected that melding of clean Craftsman design with repeated forms and a sense of harmony. “People would often look at my things and tell me it reminded them of Piet Mondrian or Frank Lloyd Wright. Because I did a lot of straight lines and small circles, I could see that influence,” Bond said. “Now I’m doing circular, colorful, modern work. I’ve evolved into more complicated patterns that use more movement. And I’m gravitating toward mid-century modern colors.”
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Mid-century modern colors and patterns appear in much of Bond’s work
Bond’s biggest local artistic influences and supporters were artists Betty Haight and Stephanie Cunningham, who showed their collaborative paintings (known as “Duets”) in the Festival of Arts for over a decade. “Before I met Barbara, I was a bit dismissive of glass art,” said Haight. “I had been subjected to far too many inferior stained-glass pieces in the ‘60s and ‘70s. When I first saw her work, the light bulb went on and I ‘got’ how lovely a good piece of glass art could be. She has a knack for using various textures and color to create brilliant abstract pieces and frames them in non-traditional ways that make the pieces lovely inside or out.”
Bond also incorporates found objects into her pieces, reflecting the many places she’s traveled across the United States and Canada. Close observers will notice bicycle derailleurs, Lexus engine parts, metal rulers, parts of sieves, water valves, antique irons and other unusual finds.
“Right before I was juried, I started moving toward a more modern industrial look,” said Bond. “I framed my glassware in steel and then incorporated found objects into the pieces. It’s a fun thing, because whenever I travel – and I’ve traveled across the country four or five times – I’ll go to antique stores or junkyards and look for metal. I’ll figure out ways to incorporate it into the glass.”
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Paying close attention to Bond’s work offers rewards. Found objects are woven into the designs of many of her pieces.
Bond points to a piece in her living room. “It’s probably from the 1930s,” she said of a flattened colander. “I pounded it down and used pieces of that in the glass. Sometimes you have to look closely, but my desktop and floor sculptures usually have found pieces incorporated into their bases.” One floor statue’s base consists of several interlocking gears, which are then mirrored above in the glass itself.
Obviously not every object can be used. “Initially, I would grab things I thought would work,” said Bond. “But after a few years of trying out different objects, I realized some things might work for the base, but the other objects have to be flat enough that they fit into the glass.”
Here is where one of those soft skills from Bond’s prior career pays unexpected dividends in her art. The last six years of her career at Orange Coast College were spent as dean of the physical education and athletics’ department and the college’s athletics director. “In any kind of athletic endeavor, you struggle, you have some success and then you keep working on it, trying to perfect it. That’s pretty much the same approach I take with my glass,” Bond said. Persistence in the face of uncertainty is a useful trait for any artist. The outcome is always uncertain because, by definition, the pursuit is wholly original. Unless an artist is willing to embrace the unknown, discoveries will never be made.
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Bond at work inside her home studio
That’s not the only way Bond’s prior work plays a role in her art. “My background is in kinesiology and athletics. In teaching, you’re always critiquing form. In a sense, that’s transferred into what I do as an artist because I’m looking at shapes and patterns,” said Bond. “In athletics, you want that final performance to be perfection. Achieving that is all about your form and reproducing the same patterns. That’s similar to what I do with my glass.” Bond also sees a lot of movement in her current work that she attributes to her prior career.
She’ll share many of these insights and more with her audience on March 17. Bond plans to bring several works and demonstrate the techniques she used to create them. As a self-taught artist, she understands what it takes to train yourself. “When I buy supplies, I talk to the shop owners to get a little more knowledge from them,” Bond said. “Then I can apply that in my own studio.”
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A work in progress shows the slow progression and planning each piece requires
“Art, For Heaven’s Sake!” is a three-day annual festival held in Redlands, California. Bond was their featured artist for 2021. In an interview last year, she told them, “We are surrounded by bold and delicate, hard and soft, light and heavy in our everyday lives. I was once asked why I decide to put a metal saw blade next to a fragile piece of textured glass. I responded that it was the same reason I love to lift heavy weights and wear high heels. I love the juxtaposition and the contrast. My art is a reflection of how I live my life.”
Whether it’s what she wears, the way she decorates her home, how she teaches or works out, Bond’s art reflects who she is and how she views the world. While those traits are uniquely her own, she’s adept at setting students on their own paths and guiding their journey.
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Viewing Bond’s work over time reveals subtle shifts in her interests and approaches. Today her pieces reflect a modern industrial design.
For more information about LOCA and their Art Talks series, visit their website at www.locaarts.org. This event takes place on Thursday, March 17 at 4 p.m. at the LCAD Gallery located at 374 Ocean Ave., Laguna Beach. The talk is free to LOCA members and $20 for non-members.